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Coming home...
Oct. 30th, 2006 05:36 amOK, so after a conversation with expedia.com (man, I'm going to die when I get my phone bills!) I leanrt that the reason I couldn't pay for my flight is that my credit card has a non-US billing address. -_- Hence, I had to book through expedia.co.uk, and pay at least 3 times the price I would've done if I could've bought it from the US site. Rrrr. Still - I now do at least have a flight home! So, I'm leaving Chicago O'Hare airport at 6.30pm tomorrow evening, and arriving back at Manchester at about 8am Tuesday morning. So, now I've got to fit in lots of fear before then! ^^;; Please send me some more of those good vibes, cos I'm going to be even more a bundle of nerves than when I came. -_-
But anyway. A nice man brought me into Chicago from the miles-away motel that Amtrak put us in, because I couldn't be arsed leaving at 11am when I didn't want to go to New York, but also didn't have a flight. *cough* Cost me $60, but hey, I'm saving the cash on a room for tonight, because I'm staying in another hostel! The nice ( and good-looking) check-in guy let me print my e-ticket too, so that's another worry gone. Phew! Though, scarily, most of the toilets here don't appear to have locks. or, in one case, doors. o.o The dorm also looks how I imagined hostels to look before I started staying in them - a big room, full of about 20 bunk beds. It's a little bleak, but it's in the most wonderful area - Lincoln Park, ironically enough. It's a university district, and it's lovely and cosy with big brick townhouses and trees and students everywhere. I found the most fantastic* teashop (called the Bourgeousie Pig XD) that serves a huge range of teas and plays great music (Pixies, Smiths, Beatles when I was there, and I went twice!). Then I thought, well, I'm in Chicago, I should listen to some jazz! So I went and found a jazz club downtown, and the music was cool, but they charged me $8.50 for a glass of wine and $18 for a salmon salad, so I nearly collapsed. -_- In the absence of $1 bills, I'd left them a $7 tip before I realised, after I'd left, that I'd already paid $5 to get in, so probably not my most successful venture, bearing in mind I still have to get to the airport and buy lunch tomorrow, and I'll have $12 left when I get my deposit back. x_o I was going to attempt the journey on the L (I love the L!) but the nearest station is too far to drag my 29kg, 1-wheeled case, so I'm probably going to have to get a taxi downtown, at least. *sigh*
But anyway, I should have time to do something cool tomorrow, like look at the zoo and other cool stuff in Lincoln Park. It really is a lovely area (I do always feel kind of at home in uni areas, even when the students are wanky, and the ones I've seen here don't seem to be), and Chicago actually seems even cooler on second viewing. Plus, I've written about another 1000 words of my yaoi_challenge fic (in the jazz club and the tea shop and on the train yesterday XD), and I'm pretty pleased with it! :D (Probably won't be when I read it back. But then, I was reading over my long-abandoned Saiyuki high school reinc fic of deathly cliche, and even that didn't seem too bad today. o.o Maybe I'm feeling charitable... or deluded. ^^;;)
*Well, aside from Applesauce, Flagstaff, but that was... the weirdest teashop too. ^^'
But anyway. A nice man brought me into Chicago from the miles-away motel that Amtrak put us in, because I couldn't be arsed leaving at 11am when I didn't want to go to New York, but also didn't have a flight. *cough* Cost me $60, but hey, I'm saving the cash on a room for tonight, because I'm staying in another hostel! The nice ( and good-looking) check-in guy let me print my e-ticket too, so that's another worry gone. Phew! Though, scarily, most of the toilets here don't appear to have locks. or, in one case, doors. o.o The dorm also looks how I imagined hostels to look before I started staying in them - a big room, full of about 20 bunk beds. It's a little bleak, but it's in the most wonderful area - Lincoln Park, ironically enough. It's a university district, and it's lovely and cosy with big brick townhouses and trees and students everywhere. I found the most fantastic* teashop (called the Bourgeousie Pig XD) that serves a huge range of teas and plays great music (Pixies, Smiths, Beatles when I was there, and I went twice!). Then I thought, well, I'm in Chicago, I should listen to some jazz! So I went and found a jazz club downtown, and the music was cool, but they charged me $8.50 for a glass of wine and $18 for a salmon salad, so I nearly collapsed. -_- In the absence of $1 bills, I'd left them a $7 tip before I realised, after I'd left, that I'd already paid $5 to get in, so probably not my most successful venture, bearing in mind I still have to get to the airport and buy lunch tomorrow, and I'll have $12 left when I get my deposit back. x_o I was going to attempt the journey on the L (I love the L!) but the nearest station is too far to drag my 29kg, 1-wheeled case, so I'm probably going to have to get a taxi downtown, at least. *sigh*
But anyway, I should have time to do something cool tomorrow, like look at the zoo and other cool stuff in Lincoln Park. It really is a lovely area (I do always feel kind of at home in uni areas, even when the students are wanky, and the ones I've seen here don't seem to be), and Chicago actually seems even cooler on second viewing. Plus, I've written about another 1000 words of my yaoi_challenge fic (in the jazz club and the tea shop and on the train yesterday XD), and I'm pretty pleased with it! :D (Probably won't be when I read it back. But then, I was reading over my long-abandoned Saiyuki high school reinc fic of deathly cliche, and even that didn't seem too bad today. o.o Maybe I'm feeling charitable... or deluded. ^^;;)
*Well, aside from Applesauce, Flagstaff, but that was... the weirdest teashop too. ^^'
